David Wallace

Judith Rodin Professor of English

Contact

Fisher-Bennett Hall315

215-746-3767

Office Hours

on leave Spring 15

David Wallace is Judith Rodin Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania. He was Chair of English 2001-4 and Interim Chair of Romance Languages, 2005-6; he served as President of the New Chaucer Society from 2004-6 and served on the Program Committee for the 2010 (Siena) meeting. In Spring 2007 he was Visiting Professor, University of Melbourne, and in Spring 2008 Bain-Swiggett Professor of Poetry at Princeton. In Fall 2010 he was Roberta and Stanley Bogen Visiting Professor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

David is a medievalist who looks forward to the early modern period; he works on English and Italian matters (and is a member of the Center for Italian Studies) with additional interests in French, German, women's writing, romance, "discovery" of the Americas and the history of slavery, and Europe.

David is currently editing a literary history of Europe, 1348-1418, a work of 600,000 words in 82 chapters to be published by Oxford University Press and supported by the Guggenheim Foundation. This is organized not by 'national blocks' (English literature, Spanish literature, etc.) but rather by nine sequences of places, or itineraries. It assumes that the space of 'Europe' becomes intelligible only through dialogue with that which forms its 'outside,' or dialogues with it. There is an interactive website (designed and maintained by DW and Brian Kirk): http://www.english.upenn.edu/~dwallace/regeneration/

David has made a series of radio documentaries for BBC Radio 3 with producer Paul Quinn:

"God's First Englishman" (2003). A program on the local and international cultures of the Venerable Bede. Voice of Bede: Kevin Whately.

"The Miraculous Journey of Margery Kempe" (2005). Retraces the voyage taken by Margery Kempe in 1433 as narrated by Book II of her Book. Voice of Margery Kempe: Prunella Scales.

"Malory's Morte Darthur: A Tale of Two Texts" (2007). Considers the how the discovery of the unique manuscript of the Morte at Winchester in 1934 challenged assumptions founded in Caxton's edition of 1485. Voice of Malory: poet laureate Andrew Motion.

David's most recent documentary, on the travels of antiquarian John Leland, was broadcast on Radio 3 in on 26 April 2009 as part of the 500th anniversary/ commiserations on the accession of Henry VIII in 1509. This features site interviews at Glastonbury and Wells, Bury St Edmund's Abbey, Titchfield, York Minster, the BL, St Paul's School and Guy of Warwick's cave with James Carley, James Simpson. Jennifer Summit, Bill Sheils, and Helen Cooper; the part of Leland is played by Jeremy Northam.